Six academic units came together to offer the new Sustainability, Energy and Environment Fellows Program, a campuswide undergraduate minor through the Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment to promote systems-level thinking about energy and sustainability, and to foster the development of an integrated view of the economy, society and the environment.
The minor provides selected students an opportunity to develop an integrated perspective on sustainability and understand the feedback, trade-offs and barriers to achieving it and the implications for decision-making.
The program will prepare students for pursuing careers in the corporate sector, nonprofit organizations, government agencies and environmental advocacy groups.
The program is being offered in partnership with the departments of agricultural and consumer economics, civil and environmental engineering, urban and regional planning, and natural resources and environmental sciences; the School of Integrative Biology; and the School of Earth, Society and Environment. The six sponsoring units are contributing teaching faculty.
The Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment expects approval of the minor during fall semester 2015 and plans to start enrollment in spring 2016. Students are encouraged to apply for enrollment in the minor as sophomores. The program requires 16 to 18 credits from a specified list of courses approved for the minor, in consultation with the adviser. Students must have a minimum GPA of 3.0. To find out more about the minor and the enrollment process, contact Madhu Khanna, iSEE associate director for education and outreach, at khanna1@illinois.edu.